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Letter from Dan Crippen, Director Congressional Budget office to Tom Daschle re: analysis of additional options that would improve Russia's access to early-warning information 1 (August 1999)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo9849 and id is 1 raw text is: CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE Dan L. Crippen U.S. CONGRESS Director WASHINGTON, DC 20515 August 24, 1999 The Honorable Tom Daschle Democratic Leader United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Mr. Leader: I am pleased to respond to your letter of August 6 asking for an analysis of additional options that would improve Russia's access to early-warning information. As you had previously requested, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has been examining a number of ways in which the United States and Russia could enhance mutual security. An earlier CBO analysis about early-warning assistance, published last September, looked at measures that would help Russia develop new space-based early-warning systems. That analysis pointed out that Russia's early-warning satellite system is seriously degraded and poses risks to both countries. After producing that analysis, CBO learned that Russia has finished constructing seven additional early-warning satellites, but it is unable or unwilling to devote the resources necessary to launch them. This letter examines the policy implications and cost of having the United States pay to launch six of those satellites-enough to give Russia 24-hour coverage of U.S. missile fields. The State of Russia's Early-Warning Systems In the past, Russia, like the United States, decided whether to respond to perceived attacks by launching nuclear missiles on the basis of information from ground- and space-based sensors. However, Russia's early-warning systems have suffered significant losses of capability. As CBO's September 1998 analysis pointed out, if those systems cannot reassure Russian leaders that false alarms are indeed benign events, the danger for both countries could be significant. (A 1995 incident in which a research rocket launched from an island off the coast of Norway triggered a heightened state of nuclear alert in Russia is a good example of the risks posed by a deficient early-warning system.) One of the best ways to provide such reassurance

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